Four terrible Christmas movies (and one holiday special)

ByNathan Thomas, George Washington High School

Courtesy photo

If the filmmakers had decided to focus on plot instead of set design, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" might not be so terrible.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Every year, the glowing magic boxes we call televisions display movies based around the year's most popular holiday. Some of them, such as "It's A Wonderful Life," are classics. Others are pieces of garbage. This is a list of five of those pieces, in no particular order.

This movie was supposed to be a satire on the commercialization of the Christmas holiday, but while watching it, I saw none of that. I saw it for what it is: a comedy about a father trying to get his son that ONE toy he really wants before Dec. 25. The only redeeming thing about it is hearing star Arnold Schwarzenegger yell, "Put the cookie down!"

The premise is Hulk Hogan runs into a shopping mall and dresses like Santa to hide from police. While in the Father Christmas costume, he gets amnesia. When he looks in the mirror again, he thinks he's Ol' Jolly himself. If that synopsis makes you think, "Man, this sounds good!," then you should probably stop reading this list.

No, not the 26-minute animated cartoon. The live-action feature-length movie starring Jim Carrey. It's bad mainly because the filmmakers decided to concentrate on the set design of Whoville, rather than making sure the story had enough substance to hold itself. They tried with the Grinch's backstory but missed the mark by a long shot.

This holiday special is based around the Wookies celebrating Christmas. With mostly Wookie-language dialogue and bad music, it's no wonder why George Lucas will never let anyone see this again -- unless they go to YouTube where they can find the full thing.